I am seventy two years old and in reasonably good shape, but I find myself constantly barraged by people wanting me to have more exploratory tests and services all the time. I do many of them, but I find medical tests extraordinarily anxiety producing. There has to be a line where they are not the most important thing in my life.
My A1C is very good. My blood pressure is very good. My weight is improving daily. I am walking twenty minutes a day, sleeping good, eating a healthy diet so that my kidneys are no worse now than they were five years ago. I had a mammogram, a bone density test and both were fine.
Now I want to just get on with my life minus any nagging guilt that I should go have this or that test done in order to prolong my life.
I do not want to end up in a death warehouse, otherwise known as nursing home. I do not want to linger on life support. I do not want to live without a quality life. Once I do not enjoy life anymore, I am perfectly willing to check out.
People deserve to live and die with dignity and they deserve to be the caretakers of their own bodies and lives. The older I get the finer the line between these things becomes.
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